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Why exactly do people seem to have a fascination with pirates? I like pirates. Lots of other people like pirates. Everyone seems to love pirates. Discuss.
Heccubus' Domain
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Pirates! Pirates, And Why We Love Them
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#2
looktothesky 
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Posted 17 May 2004 - 10:36 AM
Pirates are cool. Because they pilage and steal things, but the treasure man, the treasure!
They're now becoming a strong pop icon now though, so I'm no that fond of them anymore.....
They're now becoming a strong pop icon now though, so I'm no that fond of them anymore.....
PRECIOUS VELIUS....
#3
Heccubus
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Posted 17 May 2004 - 10:57 AM
You can still like pirates, and then be all like "Yeah, well I liked them before they got big" and all the hip youngsters will be all "Ooooooooooooooooooh" and you'll be all "Bitch".
#4
civilian_number_two
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Posted 17 May 2004 - 11:20 AM
This from the "Afterthought " to George MacDonald Fraser's THE PYRATES, which I think everyone should read.
"... John Rackham (d.1717) a fairly small-time thief of the New Providence fraternity, whose nickname Calico Jack is pure deep-sea poetry, and entirely fitting for a pirate whose history was bizarre even by filibuster standards. It was his misfortune to fall in love with Anne Bonney, the illegitimate daughter of an Irish attorney; Rackham took her to sea disguised as a man, no doubt to avoid any objections from his followers, but unfortunately the lady was of a wanton disposition, and made advances to a handsome young member of the pirate crew - who proved to be another disguised female, Mary Read, a former trooper in the British army and lately landlady of the Three Horseshoes inn at Breda in Holland. She, in turn, had fixed her affections on a (presumably) male pirate in Rackham's following, and even fought a hand-to-hand duel on his behalf, killing her opponent.
At about this time Rackham took to drink, which is hardly surprising, and when the pirate ship was finally cornerd by a King's vessel, he and his fellows shirked the action, leaving the Mesdammes Bonney and Read to put up a spirited fight alone. Taken to trial in Jamaica, Anne and Mary escaped the gallows by pleading pregnancy, and although Mary subsequently died of jail fever, Anne appears to have been eventually reprieved. Rackham was hanged on Gallows Point, Port Royal.
This is the received story of Calico Jack and the lady pirates, and no fiction-writer in his senses would accept it as a credible point for a moment. But the one difficulty about dismissing it as far-fetched nonsense is that, so far as can be judged from the evidence, it appears to be true. Records of the trial are said to exist, and no one has ever cast convincing doubts on the detailed account given in Defoe.
...Blackbeard Teach of Bristol, that extravagant monster who, if the extract from his journal quoted by Defoe is authentic, must have been one of the most brilliant prose stylists of the Augustan Age. It demands quotation again:
'Such a Day, Rum all out - Our Company somewhat sober - A damn's Confusion amongst us! - Rogues-a-plotting - great Talk of Separation. So I look'd sharp for a Prize - such a day took one, with a great deal of Liquor on board, so kept the Company hot, damn'd hot, then all Things went well again.'
Fifty-four words to paint as vivid a picture as any in the English language.
... the real Brotherhood of the Coast, that astonishing fraternity wich grew in a generation from a few woodsmen and hunters ('boucaniers') into the strongest mercenary fleet ever seen, is a serious subject, and this is not really the place to write about it. The story of how, under leaders like Morgan, whose genius might have won him a place among the great captains, the buccaneers shook the power of Spain and helped to plant their countries' flags in the Western seas... sufficient to say here that, bloody ruffians though they were, they gave to piracy a kind of stature, and played an often underrated part in the making of the New World.
Which brings us finally to Colonel Thomas Blood who, if he was never a pirate, was pretty well everything else - soldier, rascal, secret agent, justice of the Peace, perpetual fugitive, Fifth Monarchy Man, hired assassin, Covenanter, conspirator, confidant of royalty, occasional medical practicioner, and jewel thief extraordinary. He is rather better documented than other real-life ruffians ... and even more eccentric. He seems to have spent much of his life on the run, following plots and crimes which invariably went wrong, for while he was an adventurer of great ingenuity and tremendous style, the execution of his schemes was often marred by an overelaboration bordering on lunacy. Not many adventureres, planning to seize Dublin Castle, would have tried to divert the guards by hurling loaves of bread at them, in the hope that while they scrambled for the food, Blood and his associates could sally in and seize the fortress. And only a perverted artist, bent on the fairly straightforward task of assassinating the Duke of Ormonde, would have tried to do it by carrying his victim on horseback to Tyburn with the intention of hanging him from the public gallows.
Blood's most celebrated exploit, the theft of the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, he undertook disguised as a clergyman, and very nearly got away with it; apprehended, he demanded audience with Charles II, and emerged with a pardon and a reward, which caused some comment at the time and remains unexplained to this day.
That Blood was deep in political intrigues is certain, but what his exact relations were with the King (and the Duke of Buckingham) it is impossible to say. It seems unlikely that won Charles's favour by confessing that he had once been hired to murder the King while the latter was bathing at Battersea, but had held his fire out of sheer loyal awe; possibly the Merry Monarch had a fellow-feeling for such an intrepid and charming rogue; but the most probable explaination for Blood's immunity is simply that he knew too much, and bought his freedom with the promise of silence. In the end, after a lifetime of adventures, escapes, pursuits, disguises, and hand-to-hand encounters, he died of natural causes in 1680, aged abut 62 - and after his funeral at Tothill Fields they dug the body up again just to make sure that the nimble Colonel was dead at last."
That's why.
"... John Rackham (d.1717) a fairly small-time thief of the New Providence fraternity, whose nickname Calico Jack is pure deep-sea poetry, and entirely fitting for a pirate whose history was bizarre even by filibuster standards. It was his misfortune to fall in love with Anne Bonney, the illegitimate daughter of an Irish attorney; Rackham took her to sea disguised as a man, no doubt to avoid any objections from his followers, but unfortunately the lady was of a wanton disposition, and made advances to a handsome young member of the pirate crew - who proved to be another disguised female, Mary Read, a former trooper in the British army and lately landlady of the Three Horseshoes inn at Breda in Holland. She, in turn, had fixed her affections on a (presumably) male pirate in Rackham's following, and even fought a hand-to-hand duel on his behalf, killing her opponent.
At about this time Rackham took to drink, which is hardly surprising, and when the pirate ship was finally cornerd by a King's vessel, he and his fellows shirked the action, leaving the Mesdammes Bonney and Read to put up a spirited fight alone. Taken to trial in Jamaica, Anne and Mary escaped the gallows by pleading pregnancy, and although Mary subsequently died of jail fever, Anne appears to have been eventually reprieved. Rackham was hanged on Gallows Point, Port Royal.
This is the received story of Calico Jack and the lady pirates, and no fiction-writer in his senses would accept it as a credible point for a moment. But the one difficulty about dismissing it as far-fetched nonsense is that, so far as can be judged from the evidence, it appears to be true. Records of the trial are said to exist, and no one has ever cast convincing doubts on the detailed account given in Defoe.
...Blackbeard Teach of Bristol, that extravagant monster who, if the extract from his journal quoted by Defoe is authentic, must have been one of the most brilliant prose stylists of the Augustan Age. It demands quotation again:
'Such a Day, Rum all out - Our Company somewhat sober - A damn's Confusion amongst us! - Rogues-a-plotting - great Talk of Separation. So I look'd sharp for a Prize - such a day took one, with a great deal of Liquor on board, so kept the Company hot, damn'd hot, then all Things went well again.'
Fifty-four words to paint as vivid a picture as any in the English language.
... the real Brotherhood of the Coast, that astonishing fraternity wich grew in a generation from a few woodsmen and hunters ('boucaniers') into the strongest mercenary fleet ever seen, is a serious subject, and this is not really the place to write about it. The story of how, under leaders like Morgan, whose genius might have won him a place among the great captains, the buccaneers shook the power of Spain and helped to plant their countries' flags in the Western seas... sufficient to say here that, bloody ruffians though they were, they gave to piracy a kind of stature, and played an often underrated part in the making of the New World.
Which brings us finally to Colonel Thomas Blood who, if he was never a pirate, was pretty well everything else - soldier, rascal, secret agent, justice of the Peace, perpetual fugitive, Fifth Monarchy Man, hired assassin, Covenanter, conspirator, confidant of royalty, occasional medical practicioner, and jewel thief extraordinary. He is rather better documented than other real-life ruffians ... and even more eccentric. He seems to have spent much of his life on the run, following plots and crimes which invariably went wrong, for while he was an adventurer of great ingenuity and tremendous style, the execution of his schemes was often marred by an overelaboration bordering on lunacy. Not many adventureres, planning to seize Dublin Castle, would have tried to divert the guards by hurling loaves of bread at them, in the hope that while they scrambled for the food, Blood and his associates could sally in and seize the fortress. And only a perverted artist, bent on the fairly straightforward task of assassinating the Duke of Ormonde, would have tried to do it by carrying his victim on horseback to Tyburn with the intention of hanging him from the public gallows.
Blood's most celebrated exploit, the theft of the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, he undertook disguised as a clergyman, and very nearly got away with it; apprehended, he demanded audience with Charles II, and emerged with a pardon and a reward, which caused some comment at the time and remains unexplained to this day.
That Blood was deep in political intrigues is certain, but what his exact relations were with the King (and the Duke of Buckingham) it is impossible to say. It seems unlikely that won Charles's favour by confessing that he had once been hired to murder the King while the latter was bathing at Battersea, but had held his fire out of sheer loyal awe; possibly the Merry Monarch had a fellow-feeling for such an intrepid and charming rogue; but the most probable explaination for Blood's immunity is simply that he knew too much, and bought his freedom with the promise of silence. In the end, after a lifetime of adventures, escapes, pursuits, disguises, and hand-to-hand encounters, he died of natural causes in 1680, aged abut 62 - and after his funeral at Tothill Fields they dug the body up again just to make sure that the nimble Colonel was dead at last."
That's why.
This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 18 May 2004 - 05:00 PM
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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